Alrighty- I'll try to clarify a few things... Some clarification is that there is no clarification because there are some exceptions.
International vendors- (one of those fuzzy things) Pretty much allowed. Even Wistuba. Why? Well, EP and things don't typically sell directly to the USA, you must get their plants from another vendor. Wistuba does sell directly here, but if you were to pick up something I have from there, you have all the extra fees so it really doesn't compete with my market (as pointed out, is pretty basic right now). The vendors OF EP plants, not allowed. Because they also sell what I have and so are essentially competition. In fact, there are topics in the Foreign Carnivorous Plant Resources section of the forum on where to get CPs in Canada and such, which I use to refer people to when they contact me for sales to those countries.
On wider selection of plants: They come and go as I have them available... Many are listed and gone within 2 days, I don't even need to post here that there are new plants in the store (and so usually do not). Also, I'm working on something... but no details on that.
Healthy competition: Sure, that could be good.. but at the same time, I hate a forum that is slathered in ads, for myself or others... If I allowed conversation of other stores, there would be more mentions for other stores, than my own on this site. This site is crawled by thousands of unregistered users every day for information. Just by having those links on my pages is possibly pointing those people to other sites. Now that topic may be for some super rare nep- but that person researching a Venus flytrap, sees that, goes to that site and finds they have Venus flytraps also and buys from them.
The rule isn't really there for you guys, the experienced members of this forum that likely grow way more than I even have in my personal collection. It is there for those thousands of people that visit for info on a basic plant and are not bombarded with the links of other vendors. I have thought about a private forum that only registered users can see, maybe even after so many posts or something where they could talk about other vendors but there are three problems there that are apparent right away.
1) I cannot have one forum using the word censor to block those names and another to allow them.
2) I feel like it would be even harder for members to maintain a "not on the open forum" mindset for vendor names on the rest of the forum and it would leak into the other forums.
3) If for some reason it didn't work, taking it back would be asking for a ton of trouble. Look at the trouble it causes as a rule in place for 10 years!
As has been said, if you feel need to PM someone where to get that plant, or where you got yours, go for it. We do not monitor Pms I don't care what you do there... What is done and said there doesn't affect that huge margin of people passing through these forums every day. Keep it off open forum, that's it.
As to pages that have lists of vendors.... uhm... that's one of those fuzzy areas again. The barry Rice page is very informational and I wouldn't ban that from being linked. But to another forum that is supported by a store and has ads all over it for such is a no go. To someones personal page for some information.... if it is blatantly obvious that there is sales there, basically a seller's site with some info. no. Use your internal judgement on that... or you can ask me or a mod. But just a site, that SOMEWHERE has a list of vendors on it is not a problem unless you are linking to that page or something.
I love how people act like the no vendor rule is new. That rule was in effect on this forum before I even purchased it and took it over when it was ran by another store... and I did that back in.... (checks records) Aug. of 2006 (that's when I actually took possession of the forums as my own). So, quite honestly if someone wants to act like it's this new imposed rule out of the blue and not participate in this forum- more power to them. Hopefully they can find a forum that fits what they're looking for, that's the great thing about the internet!
Actually for that matter, the rules really haven't changed other than some clarification from the rules that were in place from "way back when" but this is not the first time "censorship" has been called on terraforums, it went through that at least once under the old ownership as well. And I'm confident it will happen again at some point. Here is a good topic about it from 2007 if you have nothing better to do:
http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108474
As to chat moderator: Everyone is a chat moderator! (and forum moderator
) if you see something that doesn't belong in the chat, copy and paste it to me and it will be reviewed. See something on the forum that doesn't belong? Use that cool little "report" button on the lower right side of the reply box and it is sent directly to the moderator forum and our email boxes for review.
Uhm, I think I covered it.
Andrew